The Flickr As533Mcpro Image Generatr

Messier 53 (M53) is a globular star cluster located in the northern constellation Coma Berenices. The cluster is almost 60,000 light years from Earth. It contains at least 500,000 stars.
The stars in the cluster are considered metal-poor, as they contain very little quantities of elements heavier than helium, which is below average for stars found in a globular cluster.


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Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA
Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Pro
Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C
Filter: ZWO UV/IR cut filter
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam
Guide via: ZWO OAG

Stacked from:
Lights 4 at 30 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Darks 30 at 30 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Flat 30 at 1.2s, gain 101, temp -10C
Dark Flat 30 at 1.2s gain 101 temp -10C

Bortle 4 sky.
Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.
Processed in PixInsight
Added captions in Photoshop CS4

Sometimes I find there are nothing like as many stars to see as other times.

Take this picture which includes M40, a pair of bright stars that Charles Messier thought was a double star. It is in Ursa Major (or the Plough, near to Megrez the star that connects the handle to the plough).

The stars form an optical pair, lying along the same line of sight, but not physically connected to each other as they are now known to be at different distances from Earth. One is about 470 light years away and the other is over 1000.

Messier was trying to identify nebulae but at that time it was hard to distinguish between galaxies and nebulae. This one of the few objects that made it into his catalogue that were neither.

What he missed were two spiral galaxies that my C11 picked up near to M40. The larger one just under the word Major is NGC 4290 and the much fainter one below that is PGC 39934.

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Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA
Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus 256G
Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C
Filter: ZWO UV/IR cut filter
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam
Guide via: ZWO OAG

Stacked from:
Lights 12 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Darks 30 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Flat 30 at 430ms, gain 101, temp -10C
Dark Flat 30 at 430ms gain 101 temp -10C

Bortle 4 sky.
Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.
Processed in PixInsight
Added captions in Photoshop CS4

Last night there were a few hours of clear sky so I thought I would do a bit of star gazing. Sometimes I come across more stars than you could shake a stick at. Like this picture I got of M71, a globular clusters of stars in the constellation Sagitta (yes Sagittarius). It is in the direction of a particularly rich area of the Milky Way. As you can see that provides a backdrop of so many stars you hardly tell which ones are in the cluster and which are not. If you double click on this image to see it enlarged the whole picture is stellar.

The M71 cluster has about 20,000 stars, is about 13,000 light years away and is estimated to be 27 light years across. Or 90 light years across - apparently it depends on which stars can be deemed to be a part of the cluster and which are apart from it.

~~~~~

Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA
Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus 256G
Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C
Filter: ZWO UV/IR cut filter
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam
Guide via: ZWO OAG

Stacked from:
Lights 20 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Darks 30 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Flat 30 at 430ms, gain 101, temp -10C
Dark Flat 30 at 430ms gain 101 temp -10C

Bortle 4 sky.
Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.
Processed in PixInsight
Added captions in Photoshop CS4

In the early hours of the morning I tried to get a picture of Pleiades, sometimes called the Seven Sisters. My Celestron C5 scope has too small a field of view to see it all, but this is the heart of that cluster.

Messier 45, the Pleiades, is one of the most beautiful and spectacular open clusters in the entire sky. It is located in the constellation of Taurus.

The bright star at the top centre is Alcyone. The bright star below and to the left is Merope and the one on the right is Maia.

The blue nebulosity that surrounds the cluster is a reflection nebula. Parts of this nebulosity have individual catalogue designations. NGC 1432 is the Maia nebula around Maia. NGC 1435 is the reflection nebula around Merope. VdB 23 is the reflection nebula around Alcyone.

ZWO ASIAIR Pro
ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C
ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam on ZWO OAG
Celestron C5 Spotter scope
SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro
No filters.

Captured in Live View, saving every frame:
13 Lights at 300 seconds, gain 100, temp -10C
60 Flats, at 20ms gain 100, temp -10C
60 Dark Flats, at 20ms gain 100, temp -10C
100 Bias at 1ms, gain 100, temp -10C
10 Darks at 300 seconds gain 100, temp -10C

Bortle 4 sky.
Integrated in Astro Pixel Processor and adjusted in Photoshop CS4.


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